Japan's household spending falls 3.6 per cent in July as electricity, gas and food outlays drop
Japanese households spent 301,245 yen on average in July, 1.5 per cent less than a year earlier in nominal terms and 3.6 per cent less once inflation is stripped out, the internal affairs ministry's Statistics Bureau said. Independent Jiji Press reporting on the same release tied the real-terms drop to lower spending on electricity, gas and food, the categories the Bureau's own data highlights for the month.
Economics & Markets··Midday
July's real-terms drop
Japan's Statistics Bureau reported that two-or-more-person households spent an average of 301,245 yen in July, 1.5 per cent less than a year earlier in nominal terms and 3.6 per cent less once inflation is stripped out. The monthly Family Income and Expenditure Survey is the most closely watched read on Japanese consumption, and the bureau published the July results on 4 September alongside a separate series for workers' households and seasonally adjusted figures in the same release.[1]
What households cut
Adnkronos carried a Jiji Press wire report on the same ministry release saying households spent less on electricity and gas as well as on food in July, adding category detail to the headline decline. The wire service's account, filed the same day from Tokyo, attributed the finding to Japan's internal affairs ministry, which oversees the Statistics Bureau.[2]
Nominal versus real
The gap between the 1.5 per cent nominal decline the Statistics Bureau reported and the 3.6 per cent real decline both accounts carry shows how much of the fall prices absorbed rather than a cut in what households actually bought at unchanged prices. Jiji Press's category detail on electricity, gas and food spending points at where that real-terms squeeze is concentrated, in outlays tied to costs that have moved independently of household choice, alongside the bureau's own seasonally adjusted series and its parallel figures for workers' households published in the same release.[1], [2]
